Handbook on Sexual Violence (6 page)

Walby, Armstrong and Strid discuss at length in Chapter
4 the meaning and implications of measuring sexual violence. In England and Wales the British Crime Survey measures self-reported victimisation across a range of different crime types on an annual basis. Rape is part of a special self-completion module on intimate violence. Myhill and Allen (2002) calculated prevalence for sexual victimisation and estimated 0.4 per cent for rape and 0.9 per cent for sexual assault, i.e. one in 250 for rape. More recent data from the 2007/08 British Crime Survey (Povey
et al
. 2009) showed that nearly one in four women (23.3 per cent) and one in 33 men (3 per cent) had experienced some form of sexual assault (including attempts) since the age of 16. For rape (including attempts) the prevalence was nearly one in 20 women (4.6 per cent) and one in 200 men (0.5 per cent) since the age of 16. Rand (2007) calculated a sexual victimisation rate for rape and sexual assault in the United States as one per 1,000 persons in the United States. Worldwide estimates suggest one in three women have experienced rape or sexual assault, and in some countries up to a third of adolescent girls reported forced sexual initiation (George Mason University Sexual Assault Services 2005).

Notwithstanding the scale of sexual violence, there is still evidence of the public holding victim-blaming attitudes. For example, a Home Office survey reported that a large proportion of respondents thought a woman was at least partially responsible for being raped or sexually assaulted, especially if alcohol or drugs were implicated (Home Office 2009). All the evidence points to the continued presence of sexual violence within a society which retains beliefs in victims’ culpability in their own victimisation. These issues are looked at in some detail in the first
section of the Handbook.

Policy changes

Despite the many enquiries and recommendations (the latest in the UK is Baroness Stern’s report) there has been a failure of implementation and a preservation of what has been termed ‘the justice gap’ (Temkin and Krahe´ 2008) whereby many complaints of sexual violence are dropped out of the criminal justice process.

In an overview of the impact of legislative and policy changes within England and Wales, Brown
et al
. (2010) concluded:

• There is as yet little evidence to show that the 2003 Sexual Offences Act has helped to secure a greater number of convictions against sex offenders;
  

• Rape shield provisions have not stopped the practice of attempting to discredit complainants because of their sexual histories;
  

• Only a small number of vulnerable witnesses who might benefit from the application of special measures in court are identified by the CPS;
  

• Victims were more likely to complete the initial investigation process in SARC areas compared to non-SARC areas and the conviction rate was higher in SARC areas.
  

  This implementation failure is frustrating and is an issue discussed in the final chapter of the Handbook.
  

  Outline of the book
  

  This Handbook speaks to the complexity of sexual violence, situating that complexity within a broad arena from war to the resolution of interpersonal disputes. Liz Kelly in her preface sets scholars the challenge of finding more comprehensive frameworks for understanding these complexities. The focus of the Handbook’s chapters is attitudes and behaviour of individuals placed within a broader societal frame. The reason for this is because both individual perspectives and societal levels of analysis are required if evidence based interventions are to be designed to change policy and practice. It is through an understanding of social processes and the individual’s psychological mechanisms that underpin sexual violence that it can be combated and harm reduced.
  

  There are four parts to the Handbook.
  

  Part
  One: Legacies: Setting the Scene
  provides a critical overview of past practices and policies which help to explain the origins of current thinking and offer steers for future developments.
  

  Part Tw
  o: Theories and Concepts
  examines contemporary thinking and explanatory frameworks from a number of perspectives.
  

  Part
  Three: Acts of Sexual Violence
  reviews a number of specific types of sexual violence, elaborating the range of circumstances, victims and perpetrators with a view to addressing the general and pervasive nature of
  

  such violence and contradicting narrow cultural stereotyping.
  

  Part
  Four: Responding to Sexual Violence
  evaluates current policies and practices and offers some new ideas to develop different types of interventions.
  

  The distinctive aspect of the contributions will be to try and draw out the range of manifestations of sexual violence from the mundane and everyday to the death of a victim. We also want to try and signal the range of victims within each chapter rather than have specific chapters categorised by gender, race or age of victim, or adult women or men, and where possible to identify cross-cultural dimensions to the research. We wanted a multidisciplinary exposition with an underpinning unifying theme to give a sense of coherence to the chapters but without impeding individual styles of writing and emphasis that the contributors wish to take. We thought that Liz Kelly’s idea of a continuum of sexual violence, articulated in her book
  Surviving Sexual Violence
  , is a helpful common reference point. Kelly notes the difficulties of defining sexual violence and she opts for the following definition (Kelly 1988: 41):
  

  Any physical, visual, verbal or sexual act that is experienced by the woman or girl at the time or later as a threat, invasion or assault that has the effect of hurting her or degrading her and/or takes away her ability to control intimate contact.
  

  Clearly her focus is on women as victim of sexual violence. So, as a starting point, this definition is helpful, but part of the project of this Handbook is to extend the definition to incorporate other victims and potential perpetrators.
  

  Kelly makes it clear in her book that there are ranges of behaviour defined by those experiencing sexual violence that are not reflected in legal codes nor in analytic categories defined by research. She conceptualises sexual violence as a continuum. Continuum is used in two senses: generic and specific. There are many different behaviours, for example abuse, intimidation, coercion, intrusion, threat and force, and Liz identifies the following:
  

• threats of violence;
  

• sexual harassment;
  

• pressure to have sex;
  

• sexual assault;
  

• obscene phone calls;
  

• coercive sex;
  

• domestic violence;
  

• flashing;
  

• rape;
  

• incest.
  

  She makes the point that these specific forms of sexual violence do not have strict boundaries between categories and that the continuum does not imply either a linear progression or progressive seriousness. It is a continuum of
  

  prevalence. The contributors were invited to use the concept of the continuum of violence to extend, critique or propose an alternative when developing their particular approaches.
  

  We also wanted the Handbook to offer some practical guidance. Arlene
  

  Vetere’s Chapter
  9 is a description of the programme she and her colleague, Jan Cooper, pioneered working with offenders, victims and families subjected to violence. In Chapter
  21 Rebecca Campbell presents an evaluation of the sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) programme running in the United States which sees a shift from a solely criminal justice response to a partnership between health and justice personnel.
  

  In Part
  One, Chapter
  1, Shani D’Cruze lays out the historical heritage, showing that the idea of sexual violation implying the loss of a woman’s reputation is located in Anglo-Saxon times but still has resonance today. D’Cruze’s view is that the continuum of violence provides a powerful critique of the insidious presence of sexual violence in contemporary society. Joan McGregor (Chapter
  3) adds a legal dimension to this understanding. In perhaps an unusual contribution to a social science text, Bell, Finelli and Wynne-Davies in Chapter
  2 provide insights from literature to deconstruct victimhood and pose the question of whether, in order to restore power balances between men and women, the latter themselves have to become violent. Their analysis resonates with but also offers an intriguing take on individual and societal attitudes towards sexual violence.
  

  Walby, Armstrong and Strid take us in Chapter
  4 through the various ways in which sexual violence is measured, i.e. victimisation surveys, official police records and academic studies. In trying to disaggregate data, they make the point that, depending on what is the basis of the calculation, different rates of success or improvement are reported. This is not simply a semantic discussion, but is important if we are to track the results of policy changes. In Chapter
  5 Miranda Horvath and Mark Yexley analyse the reforms in police practice and show huge improvements since the 1980s. There can be little doubt that much has been accomplished in instituting more humane approaches to victims of sexual violence. There are some grounds for optimism insofar as more women are reporting greater satisfaction in the manner with which they are being treated by the police (Temkin 1999) although it was still the case that women attacked by a stranger seemed to be treated more sympathetically than those who knew their attacker. Felson and Pare (2008) report satisfaction levels from a secondary analysis of the US National Violence Against Women (and Men) Survey in which 35 per cent of men and 41 per cent of women victims were dissatisfied with police and 23 per cent of men and 39 per cent of women were dissatisfied with the way the courts dealt with their cases. The main issues of contention were perceived leniency of punishment, scepticism, insufficiency of the investigation and insensitivity. This study too found that, if the perpetrator of the violence was known to the victim, the complainant was less satisfied with their treatment.
  

  In Part
  Two of the Handbook, a number of theoretical perspectives are described and discussed. Thus in Chapter
  8 Helen Jones examines sexual violence from a sociological perspective by looking at the functions it serves and its structural foundations. She also looks specifically at sexual violence in
  

  war, adding a dimension of analysis to Kelly’s continuum. Jennifer Brown also adds a further dimension to the Kelly conceptualisations by asking us in Chapter
  7 to think about different forms of sexually violent behaviour from a psychological perspective. She argues that there is a common core of behaviour, physical threat, linking all forms of sexual violence; thereafter, more specific behaviours are associated with its different manifestations. Jo Phoenix’s Chapter
  10 is perhaps most challenging to Kelly’s continuum by arguing it is disassociated both historically and socially. Her analysis of the economics associated with selling sex requires a greater degree of specificity in situating sexual violence. In Chapter
  9 Arlene Vetere offers a clinical psychological perspective in which she and her colleague, Jan Cooper, have pioneered a working model within which the victim and violator can meet in the same space and work through the reasons for and consequences of violence.
  

  In their way each of these contributions grapples with the problems of definition and measurement. Walby, Armstrong and Strid suggest that Kelly’s definition does not help us disaggregate the different kinds of sexual violence, while Brown attempts to show common and distinctive behaviours within its varied forms. How sexual violence is defined dictates how it is measured and the accuracy of that measurement. The continuum idea is subjected to scrutiny and contributors offer an extension in both breadth and depth to increase its explanatory and predictive power.
  

  Part
  Three of the Handbook changes the focus of attention to acts of sexual violence. In Chapter
  12 Jan Jordan takes on the challenge of examining the assumptions implicit in ‘having done rape’ meaning that, as reforms are now in place, might we expect to see a diminution of instances and better criminal justice response? Jordan uses the concept of silencing to review, somewhat pessimistically, how victims themselves, criminal justice professionals, the courts, and indeed researchers, mute women’s voices, which is in stark contrast to Kelly’s project of placing women’s voices at the centre of discourses about sexual violence.
  

  Nicole Westmarland in Chapter
  13 traces the changing policy context in respect of domestic violence. Like Jordan, Westmarland notes that domestic violence appears to be occupying a more central position in policy terms, having moved from the margins. She details various initiatives and the increases in funding and innovative practices. Along with Vetere in Part
  Two, Westmarland also examines the role of the perpetrator in sexual violence, along with programmes that incorporate them into the solution to this intractable problem. One noteworthy shift of emphasis is the idea of information sharing, rather than preservation of strict boundaries of confidentiality, between involved agencies. It is often these communication failures that give rise to the problematic instances as described earlier and lead to formal enquiries. This is a theme we pick up in our concluding thoughts. Anette Ballinger takes a case study approach in Chapter
  14 when examining sexual murder comparing the investigation of the Peter Sutcliffe series in the 1980s with that of the more recent Steve Wright murders of prostitutes in Suffolk. At the heart of her analysis is Kelly’s notion of the ordinary, i.e. sexual violence arises out of the routines of everyday life, and its perpetrators, rather
  

  than being monsters, are themselves often ‘ordinary’. These killers are at the extreme end of sexual violence – they fatally silence their victims – but they are also the proverbial man next door, your neighbour, or someone you say good morning to in the supermarket. Steph Petrie, in Chapter
  15, continues the silencing theme by looking at whose voices are heard and listened to in the case of child sexual abuse. She too examines the normalisation of violence and gives a voice to children, as does David Shannon in Chapter
  16 on Internet offending. Shannon looks at the kinds of sexually abusive behaviour children are exposed to on the Internet where the continuum notion is a helpful analytic device.
  

  Part
  Four of the Handbook addresses responses to sexual violence. In Chapter
  18 Helge Hoel and Duncan Lewis draw on their research on bullying at work to review how organisations cope, especially focusing on the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual worker. In Chapter
  20 Hazel Kemshall compares public and voluntary sector responses to offenders, while Kate Cook’s focus in Chapter
  19 is on supporting victims, as is Becki Campbell’s in Chapter
  21. Campbell summaries her extensive series of studies evaluating the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) programme in the United States, offering a reciprocal continuum of violation of survivors of sexual violence. A recurrent theme through these
  chapters is ideas about risk and how this is defined and managed.
  

  Given our commitment to bridging the gap between the hallowed groves of academe and the messy world of the practitioners, we invited four people actively working in the area of sexual violence to comment on how the work reported by academics has helped or may help them. Sharon Stratton is a serving Metropolitan Police officer, specialising in the areas of domestic and sexual violence. In Part
  One, Chapter
  6 she notes that notwithstanding changes in procedures, policies and practices, ‘traditionally police training has had little input from external sources’. It is her view that specialist training should include an understanding of rape myths, typologies of rapists, and an appreciation of the impacts of sexual violence on victims and family members, particularly children. She was of the view that the chapters contextualising sexual violence from historical and legal points of view were helpful resources for police officers to develop their appreciation of the origins and persistence of social attitudes. Ruth Mann works for Her Majesty’s Prison Service and in Part
  Two, Chapter
  11 she asks challenging questions of academics: how can practitioners be helped to distinguish good practice from quackery, and does research extend knowledge in relation to risks, need and responsivity principles in intervening with offenders? Mann finds the discussion of individual and societal responsibility helpful in thinking about working with offenders as is the discussion of differentiating motives into different manifestations of sexual violence.
  

  In Part
  Three, Chapter
  17 Stephanie Kewley offers a perspective from the Probation Service and describes divergent pathways for interventions with sex offenders and domestic violence perpetrators. She is not entirely convinced that this divide is particularly helpful, especially as the research and academic analysis show much in common between the offences and the offenders. She is asking for a deeper analysis of treatment needs and for the challenging of
  

  men’s propensity to distance themselves from their use of violence as a way of coping. Vetere’s clinical approach in Chapter
  9 is premised on the notion that perpetrators have to take responsibility for and ‘own’ their violence and its consequences. Both Kewley and Mann find
  this chapter especially appealing, informing practitioners as it does about means to access the issue of responsibility.
  

  Sheila Coates is Director of South Essex Rape and Incest Centre. It is fitting that her practice commentary in Chapter
  22 gives voice to survivors. These are raw and difficult testimonies to read and they do tell of both positive as well as negative experiences. When professionals are good, the experience is enormously supporting but when they are impatient, indifferent or sceptical it can be very damaging, and as Rebecca Campbell vividly describes, is felt to be a second violation. Coates is asking for consistency in service provisions and a multilevel attack on prevention, and makes some key recommendations.
  

  Our concluding chapter discusses the challenge laid down by Jordan and by Westmarland, in respect of rape and domestic violence, that these have been ‘done’ and are no longer at the margins of policy. We note that there have indeed been reforms in police training and in service provision to help and support both victims and perpetrators of sexual violence. In particular there have been attitudinal shifts in terms of a decline in complicity in the violence, with more victims reporting what happened to them. There has been an explosion of research since Liz Kelly undertook her pioneering research in the 1980s. However, the justice gap – the estimated number of cases of sexual violence compared with the number of convictions of perpetrators – persists. One of the reasons we postulate for this in our conclusions is the other gap,
  

  i.e. of implementation. We suggest that failure to define what improved communication is for, and between whom, leads to a lack of clarity of purpose. We also argue that risk assessment has become a policy mantra and its presence can represent a device for managers to deflect organisational responsibility for systemic failures rather than necessarily to provide a means to improve service provision. We offer a new definition of sexual violence, because definition is critical to what is measured, and in the present climate, measurement is inextricably linked to resourcing.
  

  We end, we hope, on a constructive note, offering an analysis that identifies some key ideas for both better and more informed communication between all the constituencies who have an interest in reducing sexual violence and supporting those whose lives are caught up in the havoc caused. We were inspired by the crucial work of Liz Kelly, whose research has proved both enduring and capable of expansion and refinement.
  

  References
  

  Brown, J., Horvath, M., Kelly, L. and Westmarland, N. (2010) Connections and disconnections; assessing evidence, knowledge and practice in responses to rape. http://www.equalities.gov.uk/search.aspx?terms=Brown+Horvath+kelly+Westmar land
  

  Crown Prosecution Service (2010)
  Violence Against Women Crime; key findings
  . London: CPS.
  

  Felson, R.B. and Pare, P.-P. (2008) ‘Gender and the victim’s experience with the criminal justice system’,
  Social Science Research
  , 37: 202–19.
  

  Flatley, J.
  et al
  . (2010)
  Crime in England and Wales 2009/10
  . London: Home Office Statistical Bulletin 12/10.